Budget Australian airline rated poorly in world

Low-cost Australian airline Jetstar has been rated as the worst in the world by its passengers.

One in three respondents to the international survey of recent flyers who had flown with Jetstar reported flight delays with the average hold time being four hours.

Lack of cost transparency and long delays were reported as the biggest gripes among Jetstar passengers.

The results, released on Friday, were compiled by 11 consumer groups from around the world who surveyed 11,000 people who had travelled in the past year.

Qantas was the best of the Australian airlines, ranking 36th globally, while Virgin Australia was 51st and Jetstar was last in 73rd.

Fellow budget carrier Tigerair was not included in the results due to a small sample size.

Emirates was rated the best airline in the world with an average score of 8.29 out of 10.

A spokesperson for Jetstar said that the airline would always put safety before its schedule.

They said their own internal data showed the average hold time for delayed flights was 20 minutes.

"We know how important it is to get customers to their destination on time, and we recognize there is room for improvement and our team is doing a lot of work behind the scenes," the spokesperson told News Limited on Friday.

Respondents to the survey rated airlines on punctuality, checking in, boarding, customer service, comfort, value and safety.

Tom Godfrey, a spokesman for consumer group Choice, said the results should serve as a "real wake-up call for the airline."

"Across the board we see they are failing to perform and consumers are unhappy about their excessive fees, the airlines aren't clean and they are just not running on time."

Data released by the Australian Government in 2016 revealed that Virgin had the best rate of having flights arrive and depart on time while Qantas was second best in both categories. Endit